Though development of blast furnace systems for recovering iron from ferrous ores started at least as early as the 16th century, such systems remain as substantially the only commercial approach to recovery of metals from ores. Such systems are essentially static metallurgical systems, even when the so-called jet smelting approach described, e.g., at pages 62-64 of The Iron Age, Oct. 3, 1963, is employed. Thus, even when the furnace is supplied with injected streams of (1) natural gas plus oxygen or (2) additional natural gas, the ore and flux simply fall as a central stream into the furnace and both thermal efficiency and contact of the ore with the reducing gas are relatively low. Further, control of such static systems is at best difficult, and fine and continuous control virtually impossible. Accordingly, there has long been a need for better methods and apparatus for recovering metals from ores.